


Bloom and Perish

by Corvina_of_Olympus



Category: Digimon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Hanahaki Disease, I mean it, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6731752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvina_of_Olympus/pseuds/Corvina_of_Olympus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roses bloom from his mouth, like yellow little suns. He would love to pick one for him, but it would tear his heart out along with it. Maybe that would be a fitting present.</p><p>AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I have finals in two days and need to study, AND I have two ongoing stories I need to finish, but this plot hit me like a train. A really, really angsty train. 
> 
> I discovered the prompt and decided to write about it. You can consider this a (very) late entry for TaiYama week.
> 
> The Hanahaki disease is a fictional terminal illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs out flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The flower in their lungs will suffocate them and they will die if nothing is done. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals. It can also be cured if the feelings end up being returned.

It all started on the morning Taichi Yagami found delicate, yellow petals on his pillow. Still half asleep he didn’t catch their meaning, but something in the back of his sleepy mind made him stuff them under the pillow when Hikari entered the room to get him to leave the comfortable fortress of his bed. 

He would have forgotten about the petals after the breakfast, hadn’t his throat suddenly felt stuffed while clearing away the dishes and hadn’t breathing become so difficult that he felt a coughing fit rising. Letting the plate he was about to put in the cupboard clatter and crash down into the kitchen sink he ran to the bathroom, clutching his throat with one hand and covering his mouth with the other. 

It hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_ when he kneeled in front of the toilet, coughing and hacking and wheezing up flowers that threatened to suffocate him. When the coughs finally subsided, he was kneeling in a heap of those same yellow petals, some of them crumpled and covered in spit, others untarnished and almost beautiful. Taichi picked one of them up in wonder. As far as he knew, they looked like rose petals.  
A careful knock on the door disturbed his musings and he heard his sister’s concerned voice. She must have noticed his sudden flight to the bathroom and was asking if anything was wrong with him.  
“Nothing, I just had to cough really badly. I’m fine, though, no need to worry”, he answered with a slightly scratchy voice as he quickly scooped up all the petals and flushed them down the toilet.

His throat still felt wrong when he left the bathroom and gave the worried-looking Hikari a crooked smile. He finished his work in the kitchen before he went to lock himself in his room and start his computer. He had a slight idea of what those petals meant for him, but he refused to believe it until he had the confirmation. After all it couldn’t be possible, right? He couldn’t think of a reason why _he_ of all people should have this condition. But then again: Was there any other reason why a person would suddenly start coughing up flowers?

The results of his search were quite clear.  
Hanahaki disease.  
He, Taichi Yagami, suffered from Hanahaki disease. And he didn’t even know why it hit _him_. There were flowers growing in his lungs, rooting deeply and slowly cutting off his air supply. Yellow roses, a reminder of an unrequited love.

He had heard teenage girl talking about Hanahaki like it was something romantic. The tragedy of an unrequited love, so strong that it would eat you away from the inside just because you happened to fall in love with the wrong person.  
It wasn’t romantic, it was unfair. 

Taichi remembered the few petals under his pillow. They were flat and crushed now, but nonetheless beautiful. Who was responsible for the yellow roses? Taichi weighed the petals in his hand and stared out of the window with a frown. How could he catch this disease if he didn’t even know who he was in love with? Was his denial so strong?

He heard someone try to turn the doorknob. “Tai, are you in there? Is everything okay? Why did you lock yourself in?”  
“Sorry, Kari”, he said and stuffed the rose petals into the pockets of his pants. “I’m comin’…”  
He unlocked and opened the door to see his sister with the telephone in her hand, holding it out to him. “Yamato called. He wants to ask if you want to meet with him.”

 _Yamato._

The name caused a feeling inside him like someone had pushed a switch. Blue flashed behind his eyes, a very distinctive shade of blue, like the stormy sea. His throat was itching. Suddenly he could feel the roots in his chest and an earthy flavour rose up in his throat, along with more petals.  
“Oh God”, he choked out before pushing past his confused sister and running back to the bathroom where he broke out into another coughing fit. He could hear Hikari talk to Yamato on the phone, excusing on his behalf and ending the call.

Dear _God_ , Yamato.

The earthy flavour stuck to his tongue as he coughed up dozens and dozens of delicate, yellow petals. By the time Hikari had followed him and seen the whole ordeal, tears were streaming down his face. It _hurt._

His sister instinctively realised what was wrong and patted his back both reassuringly and to help him get the petals out of his throat. 

When the fit was over they both sat together in silence until Hikari spoke up. 

“There’s surgery for Hanahaki disease” she supplied, but Taichi shook his head. “I don’t want to. I know the cost.” He would have to give up that newly discovered part of himself to be cured. Sure, it was new, terrible, dangerous territory and he was disgusted by it himself, but he didn’t want to lose it. He didn’t want to sacrifice any part of his feelings, of what made him _him_ , even if he knew the consequences.

_Be loved back or die._

This whole illness sounded like a punishment, a cruel joke made by the gods. 

Hikari cried, and he cried with her. Judging from the amount of petals he might have had only a few days left. Whatever decision he made now, it would be final.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hikari had told nobody about his condition, just like he asked her to. He lied in bed and felt the thorns of the roses scratching at his throat. They grew at a fast pace, just like he realised more and more of his feelings for his best friend. Another batch of petals forced their way out of his mouth, this time accompanied by tiny crimson stains of blood. It was beginning.

“Kari, do you know what yellow roses mean?” She shook her head no, tears shining in her eyes. 

“They mean _friendship._ ”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I was so tempted to write a sequel. Here is the sequel; I hope you enjoy it (and by that I mean: I hope you'll cry, then I have reached my goal. >:D)  
> 

On the third day after Taichi noticed the infection, Koushiro came to visit him. Of course, he didn’t know about it yet, as Hikari had held her promise, but Taichi couldn’t shove the bucket full of vomited yellow petals (and blood) behind his desk fast enough. Koushiro was smart, he always had been, and he immediately realized what was going on. His dark eyes went big at the sight of the roses and then turned to Taichi, filled with hardly masked horror. 

“You are not getting the surgery, right?” was what Koushiro said, and somehow the resigned and almost tired tone of his friend’s voice caused a riot in his lungs. Choking, his hands scrambled for the bucket, but before his fingers could reach it a cascada of yellow rained down onto the fluffy green carpet Hikari had given him for his birthday a few years ago.  
A hand helpfully held the old bucket under his chin, and Taichi couldn’t say _Thank you_ between retching and gasping for breath.  
When the attack was over and the brunette sat on the carpet panting heavily and with glazed eyes, Koushiro wordlessly bent down and scooped up the petals from the floor and threw them into the bucket. This time Taichi’s breath was enough for a mumbled “Thank you”.

“Who is it that you love so much that you would die for it?” Koushiro calmly asked. But there was a glint in his eyes that Taichi hadn’t seen ever before and it unsettled him. “Izzy…”  
“No _Izzy-ing_ me here, Taichi. _Who is it?_ Who in the world would make you leave your family alone for a love that might never be returned? I know that you want to protect your own feelings, but this is not the time for pride and stubbornness! How dare you even _consider_ leaving your friends and family because of a hopeless obsession!?”

Taichi flinched away, partly because he had never witnessed his friend becoming so furious, and partly because he was _right._  
The movement made rose’s thorns scratch at his throat, and he was left to helplessly cough into the bucket again. This time, the yellow petals were accompanied by big splotches of his own blood.

What was he thinking? Why was he willing to make his friends suffer because of some unreturned feelings for one of them? Why was he willing to make his parents suffer? Why on earth was he willing to make _Hikari_ suffer?

“I’m calling an ambulance. They will bring you to the hospital and you’ll get the surgery.” He heard Koushiro’s strict and determined voice, and coughed up a whole rose blossom, spotted with red. He made no move to stop his friend as he turned on his heels and left the room for the telephone.

Why was he so dead-set on protecting feelings he hadn’t even been aware of until three days ago? Suffering through Hanahaki out of pure stubbornness would help nobody.  
He was being _selfish._

He didn’t struggle when paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher ten minutes later and then proceeded to carry him down the stairs to the ambulance. He sent a look that said _“I’m sorry”_ towards Koushiro, who trailed behind the paramedics with a frown on his face. His friend held up the telephone as he was loaded into the ambulance. “I’m calling the others. Especially Yamato will love to hear that you’re getting yourself _killed_ because of your stubbornness,” Taichi heard and he wanted to shout at Koushiro to please, _please_ not tell the others, and when had he gotten so cruel anyway?, but the name Yamato shook him like a heavy earthquake would and he's caught in the worst attack of the last three days. He heard the paramedics shout to _“hurry, hurry up!”_ and saw the shock in Koushiro’s eyes when he, smart as he was, realized the whole dilemma this simple name caused and the implications that came with it. Taichi didn’t notice anything else after that as the pretty, yellow petals flew from his mouth and his vision went dark.

 

He wakes up between white sheets and with a dreadful feeling of emptiness in his chest. There is a dull throb of pain in his throat, but he doesn’t feel the scratching of thorns and the petals forcing themselves up his throat, both things he had gotten used to over the last days.

He blinks a few times and notices the seven figures standing around his hospital bed, because that’s obviously what it was.  
One of the figures bends forward slightly and speaks up. It is Sora’s voice he is hearing.  
“He’s waking up!”

Six of the seven blurred figures crowd around the bed, lean over it and start talking, yelling and sobbing at him all simultaneously.  
Taichi blinks a few more times before he is able to see his friends clearly. He is tired, and the cacophony of their voices gives him a headache. He tries to get them to quiet down with a “hey” and a lopsided grin. He doesn’t feel like grinning, though. There’s still the horrible, empty feeling in his chest and the seventh person who kept his distance to the bed and is staring at the white walls of the hospital room as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

Sora, Mimi, Jyou, Takeru, Hikari and Koushiro stop talking one after another and resort to giving him tearful smiles. Taichi manages another grin and then turns his head to Yamato.  
“We have to talk” said boy states and still refuses to meet the brunet’s eyes. Koushiro ushers the others out of the room and sends a meaningful look towards Taichi while the latter tries to grasp what is feeling so wrong here.  
The room goes quiet with the departure of the others, and finally Yamato looks at him.  
Blue.  
No flowers. No feelings.

Taichi feels strangely distant from it all, but he knows that he should be upset. The doctors took something from him, something important. But what cost would it have had if he kept it?

Yamato starts to speak then. “Hikari and Koushiro told us everything.” His eyes wander off again, this time towards the window with the white drapes moving in the breeze. White, everything was so white and sterile…  
“Koushiro also told me his suspicion about who might have been the cause for all of this.” He makes a vague gesture in the direction of his best friend’s chest.  
_“No. Oh dear God, no.”_ was all Taichi could think of while remembering the look of realization across Koushiro’s face at his reaction to the name of his best friend. But he can’t imagine anymore _why_ the name had caused such a tremor in his body. He feels like he’s desperately grasping at something that had never been there. 

“Is he right? Did you get this disease… because of me?”  
Taichi has rarely seen Yamato this nervous, fumbling his hands and looking at him, dare he say, _shyly_. He doesn’t answer him.  
Suddenly, Yamato hits the awfully white wall with his fist and his face converts into an angry grimace. _“Is he right?”_ He’s yelling now, and the brunet is nearly relieved to see that face of his best friend again.  
Now Taichi is the one to look away.  
“He used to be.”

The brunet glances back at Yamato just in time to see the look of shock crossing his face. It quickly gets replaced by guilt and resignation. “I’m sorry for putting you through this.”  
Taichi laughs a strangled laugh. “It’s not like you could help it. It was my fault to stupidly fall in love with my best friend and not even noticing it until it was too late.”

Their eyes meet again, and for a moment it feels like they both try to reach for something between them that never had a chance and never will get one again. Then Yamato turns away. “I will fetch the others”, he says with a clipped voice and leaves the white room. Taichi closes his eyes and breathes in the distinctive smell of germicide that fills every hospital. He hears the worried murmurs of their friends getting louder, and he smiles. The yellow roses squeezing his lungs and winding around his heart were no more.

 

Two days later Yamato Ishida coughed up two small, white petals of a rainflower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't I mean? I got really sad myself while writing this. 
> 
> Again, I had troubles finding a meaningful and fitting flower... Rainflowers are said to stand for "I love you back, I must atone for my sins, I will never forget you". 
> 
> I LIVE OFF MY READERS' TEARS

**Author's Note:**

> Opinions?
> 
> (It was incredibly difficult to find flowers meaning friendship. There are flowers you can use to basically tell people to fuck off in flower language, but friendship? Nope. It's also only one meaning of yellow roses. The others are, according to Wikipedia: "jealousy, infidelity, apology, a broken heart, intense emotion, undying love, extreme betrayal")


End file.
